The Retired Conman
by NorahB
Summary: Post-series finale. Neal creates a new life and identity for himself, after faking his own death and leaving New York behind. Eight months after "dying," he can't get Sara Ellis out of his mind and tricks her into meeting him in London. In four parts, Neal comes face to face with the four most important people of his old life and decides who he'll be, now that he has his freedom.
1. Chapter 1

**Summary:**

Set after the series finale. Neal creates a new life, and identity, for himself after faking his own death and leaving everyone in New York behind. Eight months after "dying," he can't get Sara Ellis out of his mind, and decides to trick her into meeting him in London. Part one of a four-part series, in which Neal comes face to face with the important people from his old life.

 **A/N**

I go back and forth about the series finale. Sometimes I like it a lot, and sometimes I don't. But I never saw Neal as being able to be fully reformed, or needing to be fully reformed. I never saw him living the life that Peter lives. So I appreciated the freedom that he has at the end, both the physical freedom to go where he wants, and the psychological freedom to be himself, or to figure out who that is. This is my attempt to bring closure to the characters, and to allow Neal to figure out who he wants to be, now that he can be anything or anyone. I'm planning three more installments, all one-shots, featuring encounters with Mozzie, Peter, and probably Elizabeth - though Neal may not seek all of them out. One or more may find him. I wanted to start with Sara, because I'm a really big fan of the relationship that she and Neal had, and even though it might seem like Mozzie would be the first one to meet up Neal, I had this idea that Neal needed to see Sara, because of what she represents to him.

 **The "Retired" Conman:**

 _ **Spring**_

He had forgotten how damp London was. How the moisture in the air permeated everything, whether it was raining or not. He had forgotten London in early spring – still cold enough so that the damp soaked into your bones. Still, the air glistened today. Just a little bit. As if the city was coming awake after winter. Turning from gray to goldish green.

Neal would take London, damp and all. Happily. After seven and a half years of one captivity or another, he was finally off his leash. Finally, able to go anywhere on the planet. Except New York. And really best to avoid the entire United States of America. And he definitely shouldn't contact any friends or family. And Neal Caffrey wasn't actually free, because Neal Caffrey was dead.

The first few weeks, after he'd fled to an island with no US extradition, Neal had hidden out in a remote bungalow, for which he'd paid triple the asking price in an exchange for a promise of anonymity and privacy. He'd missed Mozzie most days. This was nothing like their previous island retreat. Neal wasn't trying to build a life here. This was just a temporary, albeit beautiful hideout. He read literature about transformation – _The Great Gatsby_ , _Midsummer Night's Dream_ , _Infinite Jest_ , _Pygmalion_. As always, he painted to calm his nerves. Though a couple weeks in, something odd happened when he was in the middle of forging a Van Gogh.

It was late. Three in the morning late (which he knew from reading Fitzgerald's Crackup essays was the hour that marked "the true dark soul of the night"). He had a photograph of Starry Night beside his easel, but he knew the painting so well, he could paint those stars from memory. He wasn't looking at the photo. He could almost paint Van Gogh's stars like they were his, like he himself had created them. Neal Caffrey's best forgery had always come from moments like these, when he stopped thinking about brushstroke and technique, when for a tiny instant, he crept inside the head of the master. Understand the master: understand the work. Own the work: own the con.

Anyway, Neal was painting, and suddenly he was reaching for pink instead of yellow. He didn't know why. Maybe he was just tired. But nevertheless, Van Gogh's stars became pink. Neal stared at the canvas, broke out laughing, said to himself, "What the fuck. It's not like I've got a fence lined up for a forged Van Gogh." And he started painting with whimsy and way too much color, until it didn't look like a copy of any piece he'd seen.

So, there was painting to calm the nerves. Also, surfing – several of Neal's aliases were excellent surfers, and so of course Neal, at the center of alias-city, had to be an excellent surfer. Other than that brief getaway with Mozz, Neal hadn't been close enough to the ocean in these last seven and half years to throw stones into the waves, let alone ride them. But it turned out it was like riding a bike.

In the waves, he found himself so focused on staying above water that he forgot to think. The waves themselves seemed to drown out the chatter that otherwise filled his mind.

Neal flirted with women on the beach, and women in town when he ventured into "civilization" once a week for supplies. But his heart wasn't in it. It was just a dance that he was used to – so familiar, it would have been harder not to flirt. But Neal gave no phone number to anyone. And when women gave him their numbers, with unsubtle suggestions to meet up for coffee or drinks, Neal grinned his conman's grin and said he would save the number for a rainy day. Even when it rained, Neal called no one.

After a month, Neal had created a labyrinth of secret off-shore accounts, and felt comfortable that they could not be cracked, that they could not point back to his true identity.

After two months, Neal had conducted enough internet research and hacking into FBI resources to feel certain that no one, not even Peter, was looking for him. He'd pulled off the fake death – Neal Caffrey's last, greatest con – flawlessly. The FBI thought he was dead. There was even a real death certificate. There was a funeral, which broke Neal's heart, because he knew June and Mozzie would be there, along with Peter and a pregnant Elizabeth, and Jones, and Diana, holding baby Theo.

His ego did appreciate the fact that _The New York Times_ did a real obituary to memorialize him. Not a mere death notice. This was a real article. Apparently, the _Times_ had appreciated the drama of Neal Caffrey, con man extraordinaire, taken down by his arch rival Matthew Keller, while in the middle of helping the Panthers pull off a spectacular heist. Somehow the _Times_ had learned about his relationship with Keller, who Peter had hurriedly killed after he thought Keller killed Neal. The reporter really got into the story at this point, noting that Keller was the blue-collar version of Caffrey (seriously, what idiot acquaintance was giving out this gossip?), setting up their rivalry as something out of Shakespeare, like they were brothers battling to outsmart each other, two criminals who served as perfect rivals because they were perfect foils for each other. Keller was what you might imagine when you imagined a real-life con artist – smart, yes, but nasty in his conniving nature, manipulative, seedy, and ultimately deadly. Neal, on the other hand, was elegant, charming, and never carried a weapon. They even alluded to James Bond. And somehow in all this romanticizing of the art of the con – the _Times_ never mentioned that Neal was a C.I. working for the Bureau. The FBI had managed to keep his cover intact. Thank god – because the Panthers were known to hunt down friends and family of anyone who crossed them.

Neal must have read that article ten times. He read anything else he could get his hands on. After a few weeks, he even managed to break into Peter's private emails. That's when he was sure that he'd conned everyone. Peter was working to get Neal's deal honored posthumously. Peter wanted to bury Neal as a free man, not shackled to anything. He thought the Bureau owed Neal something, even if it was symbolic. He'd also arranged a classified FBI commendation. He was relentless as he tried to get maximum sentences for the Panthers. And the vitriol Peter threw at anyone who was getting in his way was so raw that Neal knew Peter didn't _know_. Peter seemed 100% convinced that Neal was dead.

Which was surprising.

Neal had left bread crumbs. The key to the storage locker, with an array of evidence of his death con, was in his personal effects when he "died." Peter was the best at finding things, especially Neal, and Neal had thought he might put the pieces together within days. Which would have been incredibly inconvenient. After he'd fled the country, he'd wondered why he hadn't thought to keep the key on him, and send it in a few months, when he was safe.

But Neal hated betraying his friends, and he knew Peter would take this hard, and so he'd left these breadcrumbs, figuring that Peter would follow them once he was ready. Trusting that the man who was like a father, or older brother, to him would not tell a soul at the FBI, would not hunt him down if he found out Neal was alive, but would feel relieved and leave it at that.

Mozzie figured it out two weeks after Neal "died." Neal knew that Mozzie knew because when Neal tried to hack into Mozzie's email, which had been impenetrable for two weeks, suddenly there was a backdoor. And a coded message to Nicholas Tabernacle (a combination of two of his favorite aliases) saying, "The student has become the teacher." Neal wrote back, in code that he knew only Mozzie would understand because they had developed this particular method of hiding their messages within code. The translation? "Safe. Laying low. Need a few months before substantive contact." And that was that. Neither one wrote back.

###

After the island, Neal spent a few weeks in several different countries, none of which possessed extradition treaties with the U.S. Finally, four months after his "death," Neal went to Paris. Throwing himself into a new alias, and a fresh identity, he tried to start a life. For four months, two weeks, and two days, Neal tried to really live in this wonderful city, a city he'd dreamt of so many times in the last seven and a half years, to make himself into a new man, to transform into his _final_ self. And for four months, two weeks, and two days, he toyed with idea of hopping across the channel to London.

At first it had seemed like a pipe dream. He imagined surprising her with flowers or a recovered Raphael. Conning his way into the meet – he'd set it up through her work, so that she thought she was meeting a wealthy client when in fact she was meeting him. Being slick but not too slick as he explained why faking his death was perfectly reasonable, his only resort. Letting his artificial grin fade just slightly, so that she could see the cracks in his armor, before rubbing his eyes wearily, and giving her a genuine, possibly sad smile.

But now he was here. Carrying his umbrella in one hand and a cardboard cylinder in the other, as he walked down a busy sidewalk in the Business District. Wearing one of his trademark vintage suits, and a hat he'd had made to fit his head perfectly.

Never let them see you sweat – Neal believed in that motto wholeheartedly.

But as he neared the restaurant, his palms were sweating buckets. He almost lost his grip on the damned umbrella.

Entering the trendy restaurant, he stored his umbrella in their handy stand, walked up to the hostess, and flashed her his most winning smile. "I've got a 7:30 reservation," he said airily. "The name's Moreau."

The hostess glanced down at her notes, nodded, and said, "Right this way, sir. Your date has already arrived."

Neal smiled to himself. A _real_ smile.

When he caught his first glimpse of Sara Ellis, her back was towards him. She was wearing a black dress he recognized. Her classic, elegant, not too revealing for work black dress. Her strawberry blond hair was up in a tight bun. Neal put a hand on the hostess's shoulder as he stopped her from moving forward. "Let me take it from here," he said. "I want to do this right."

The girl, who couldn't have been more than 20, beamed at him and bit her lip, as if she wished she were the woman in the classic black dress.

Once he was alone in his approach, Neal took a deep breath and conjured all of his charm and all of his courage. He breezed past Sara, dropping the cylinder into her lap as he grabbed her wine glass so as not to accidentally knock the wine into her lap or all over the table. Sara looked up, startled, but Neal kept his hat tipped down so she couldn't see his face yet. He was focused on getting to the other side of the table.

"Mr. Moreau, I presume?" she said with a laugh as he passed so close to her body he could smell not just her perfume but also her shampoo and a hint of something else. Neal didn't know why, but he always felt like Sara smelled like she was made of steel.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Neal Caffrey flopped down in the chair across the table from his ex-girlfriend. He had intended to slide into the chair, elegantly and gracefully. But he didn't quite pull it off. His body was a jumble of nerves. Not yet making eye contact, he sipped wine from her glass – smooth and supple and expensive. Sara had always had good taste. In just about everything.

She was unusually quiet. Finally, she whispered, "If that really is you, Caffrey, I'm going to kill you, and this time it'll stick."

He finally looked up at Sara Ellis. Her eyes were wet.

Sara never cried.

Neal leaned over the table and said in a conspiratorial tone, "I get that you're pissed. And I even understand the violence you want to enact. But I need you to do me a favor and call me Victor."

"Victor Moreau?"

"Yes."

"Fuck. I should have known. _That name_. I knew I'd seen it somewhere before."

Neal nodded.

"The passport you had. I saw it before you ran off with the treasure. The fucking impossibly well forged passport. Victor Moreau."

He nodded again.

She bit her lip, then grabbed the glass from him and downed the wine like it was water. She looked like might cry, really cry, any second.

"Please don't cry," he said, his voice soft and sincere.

"Because I'll blow your cover?"

"Because you'll break my heart," he told her, knowing it sounded like a line. And now his eyes were tearing up, dammit. He reached across the table, grabbed her hand, squeezed it tighter than must be comfortable, and said, "Sara, dammit, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all of it. I got into something I couldn't get out of, and the last couple years it's been this snowball of fuckups, and I got backed into several corners, and this was the best I could do."

She glared at him, but didn't let go of his hand. "The best you could do?"

Neal nodded.

She dropped his hand, then leaned across the table to lay her hands on both sides of his face. He thought for a moment that she might kiss him. But her touch turned from gentle to harsh as she drew his head towards her, her grip vice-like. In a whisper, she hissed, "You are the smartest person I have ever met, and the best you could do was fake your own goddamned death and make everyone who ever loved you want to jump off a cliff?"

He gulped.

"Nothing to say to that?" she asked.

He gulped again. Eight months after the greatest con of this life, and this was the first time he was talking about it. The messages on Mozzie's server didn't really count. No matter how mad Mozzie might be, he'd never put anything of substance into electronic communication. And of all of them, Mozz would be the one to understand, to be impressed even, and to forgive. It was a con artist thing. As much as Sara liked to bend the rules or even break them sometimes, she'd once ended her relationship with Neal because she said there were lines she was unwilling to cross, lines she would not walk across with him. Something about never going so far off normal that she couldn't come back from it.

"The great Neal Caffrey, speechless?" she snapped.

"Sara, I beg of you, call me Vic."

"That's a stupid name."

"Victor then. Or Moreau."

She glared at him.

"Adam is my middle name."

"Can I just call you dumbass?"

He shrugged and flashed her a toothy grin. "Sure."

She let go of his cheeks. Neal could still feel the heat of her hands, even after she pulled away. Continuing to glare, Sara said, "I'm going to order dinner now, because I'm starving. I had to work through lunch, and all I've had since breakfast is an apple and a bag of Cheetos. I'm going to order something expensive, and make you pay. And I'm going to listen to what you have to say for yourself, Victor Adam Moreau, because I'm curious, and I might as well know who I'm talking to. There's so many of you it's hard to keep up."

Neal grinned at her.

"Stop smiling like you're trying to con me."

Neal's grin broke. As he felt himself cracking, just a little bit, his facade faltering, he considered standing up. Walking or possibly running out of the restaurant. Real tears came to his eyes. Dammit. This was just like he'd planned except it was happening against his will. He tried to smile that sad smile he'd planned, but he couldn't manage it.

He didn't know what expression was on his face, and this lack of self-awareness was a very strange feeling for Neal Caffrey to have.

Neal Caffrey/Nick Halden/Steve Tabernacle/James Maine/Vic Moreau put his head in his hands and then rested his head on the table.

This was fucking embarrassing. He imagined the entire restaurant staring at them.

"Ne—I mean Victor," Sara said, sounding genuine for the first time all evening. "It's okay. I wasn't really going to kill you."

He chuckled.

"Does Peter know?" she asked.

Neal swallowed hard before pulling himself up, looking her in the eyes, and saying, "No. He might find out. But for now, I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm dead."

"Mozzie?"

Neal nodded. "He figured it out. We've passed a couple coded messages. That's it. I didn't think anything more was safe."

She frowned. "So why are you here?"

He shrugged. "Maybe I got bored?"

"Come on."

"I shouldn't be here," he told her. "But I couldn't get you out of my head. And I _was_ bored. And far too alone. It's not reasonable, me being here, seeing you. But I thought with you out of the States... . And eight months have passed. I thought that maybe I could see you. And I did recover that Raphael for you. Specifically for you."

What he didn't say was that he could imagine a future with Sara. And even if that future was ludicrous, even if it could never happen in any conceivable universe, the thought of her kept him warm at night. Kept him grounded. He didn't say that the very thought of her made him feel like a real person, instead of an alias.

She laughed, that pure delighted laugh of hers, as she carefully opened the cardboard cylinder and peeked inside. " _Woman with a Veil_? You're kidding? How? This has been missing for years."

Neal raised his brows and grinned. "I know a lot of thieves. This was stolen by a friend of mine. I told him I needed a grand romantic gesture. He knew who it had been fenced to. And the new owner has a reputation for being a dick. The worst kind of trust fund brat. It was a good target, and an easy job. Let's just say the brat's security needs an upgrade."

Sara laughed again. Then her eyes widened. "Do you know Elizabeth had the baby?"

He shook his head. "I assumed. But I stopped hacking into Peter's emails a few months ago." It had gotten too depressing.

"So you don't know the baby's name?"

He shook his head, not sure why that should matter.

"It's Neal," she said, gentler now, as if she understood that his facade could break apart at any moment. "They named the baby after you. Neal Burke."

And, all of a sudden, he couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. He just imagined Peter's face when he called his son by his dead friend's name. The Peter who, in the emails Neal had hacked into, seemed like a shadow of himself.

Neal might have lost control of his face completely if the server hadn't come to the table to get their order at that exact moment. Sara ordered a bottle of wine and whatever was the most expensive entree on the menu. "What about you, Vic?" she asked, her voice incredibly kind, her hand resting softly on his.

Neal glanced up at the bored looking waiter, and something inside him clicked. He could turn on his con artist self, at will, like flipping a light switch. He fixed his eyes on the waiter, making his expression light and airy. He grinned toothily. "Same for me," he said. "But that's not the wine we want." Neal ran his finger along the wine list until he found what he was looking for. Four hundred a bottle. "This one," he said.

After the waiter left, Sara frowned and glanced at him with brows raised. "Just how deep are Victor Moreau's pockets?"

He shrugged and grinned that easy, uncomplicated grin. "Deep. Let's just say the authorities didn't recover everything the Panthers stole. And it's not like I'm actually paying my credit card bills."

###

It took a lot of convincing, but finally he got her to agree to come to his hotel room. "You realize that I'm not sleeping with you, Caffrey?" she said quietly as approached his door.

"Moreau," he corrected.

She sighed, saying, "None of my other exes have multiple names."

"Bores," he said as he swiped his keycard and opened the door. "Or fools."

"Don't get me started on fools," she hissed as Neal ushered her into the opulent suite. Looking around, she said, "I see you're not skimping on the amenities."

"Why be a criminal if you're going to live like the masses?"

She shook her head, laughing humorlessly as she said, "There is so much wrong with you."

"Agreed."

She sat on the window seat. Neal pulled up a chair so that they were facing each other. He crossed and uncrossed his legs, suddenly nervous at the idea of answering all her questions. Now that they could finally speak freely, without fear of being overheard, he was wishing he hadn't badgered her into coming back to the hotel with him. And wondering if he'd made a mistake coming to London.

"Why did you do it?" she asked quietly.

"I was never going to be free. The FBI would have found loophole after loophole to keep me chained to them, to keep me on a two-mile radius, or worse. I was too good at my job. An _asset_ ," he said, searching her face for a hint of sympathy, or a sign that she believed him, or that she could ever trust him again. "I could make any deal, and they would always be able to wriggle out of it. They're the law. And I think we both know that my list of accomplishments is much longer than my list of convictions."

She snorted. After a long moment, Sara said, "That's a not good enough reason. And why couldn't you have told us?"

He raised his brows as he told her, "Plausible deniability. And your reactions needed to seem real."

As Sara's expression turned from neutral to insanely angry, Neal regretted his choice of words. "Real?" she yelled. "I cried for a week. I had to take sick days. I never take sick days. But I didn't even feel like I was lying, because the thought of you, shot down as you were trying to bring down the bad guys, it made me feel ill. And empty. I couldn't sleep. I finally had to get some sleeping pills prescribed."

Neal tried to maintain a neutral expression. He didn't want her to know he was breaking inside.

"And Peter?" she said. "He was a wreck. Elizabeth was the one who called me. She said he kept trying, and giving up before he finished dialing my number."

"It wasn't just me that I was protecting," Neal said, his voice even, level. "The farther I got into the Panthers, the clearer it was that there was no way to bring them down without risking their retribution. They wouldn't just come after me. They'd come after Peter, and Elizabeth, and you. And Mozzie. And Alex. Maybe even Jones and Diana."

Sara nodded, but she still didn't look happy. "Maybe you should have thought of that before you decided to take them on."

He gave her a winning smile. "Hindsight."

"I hate you," she said.

"I gathered," he murmured. But then he grinned at her, a sly grin, an easy grin. "But that's how we started out, didn't we?"

Sara rolled her eyes, but she smiled. Just a tiny smile, but it was there. "So, what have you been up to? Besides robbing trust fund babies?"

"Oh, that was burglary, not robbery. You know I don't like weapons," he said lightly. When she didn't laugh, and instead continued to stare him down, clearly intent on getting an answer, he threw up his hands and said, "Painting, mostly. I've helped a friend with a couple small jobs. It's good to keep up your skills with a little cat burglary here, a little forgery here. I reactivated an old alias, one the Bureau never cracked, and it turns out he was missed."

Sara was glaring at him, but he saw no point in lying, not to her.

"I'm never going to be completely reformed, Sara," he said. "I'm done pretending to be something I'm not."

She laughed, but her expression was sad. Disappointed?

As if compelled to utter honesty, Neal went on speaking. "Alex found me a couple weeks ago. We broke into the Louvre."

Her eyes widened. "Are you crazy?" she hissed. "Are you trying to get caught?"

"The con's a rush," he said, not apologizing, not dressing it up. "Some people live inside the lines. I don't."

"And when you say painting, you mean forgeries?" she asked.

And just like that, he felt shy. Much less sure of himself. He remembered the champagne and the ice bucket he'd prepared before dinner, just in case, and busied himself with pouring drinks. The champagne was barely cold, because his ice had melted, and so the bottle was sitting in icy water instead of ice cubes. Why hadn't he thought of that? Maybe he'd just been so nervous about seeing Sara. He'd changed his suit at least three times.

"Neal?" Her voice was quiet and tentative. He turned around to see that she had discovered the painting he'd hidden under papers on his desk, clearly not well enough. He'd taken so long getting ready that he hadn't had time to properly set up the room, or to make sure that everything important was out of sight of prying eyes. And hands.

"It calms the nerves," he said, bringing her a glass of champagne.

She took the champagne, but didn't drink it right away. She carried the painting over to the window seat, where she sat down again. "This isn't a Degas, is it?"

He shook his head.

"It's not a Monet or a Renoir either. This isn't a forgery."

He shrugged and sipped his champagne.

"Neal, is this me? And you?" she asked, turning the painting to face him, so that he could see the scene he knew so well, the young couple walking through New York together, and he could feel once again how the innocence of the scene hurt him, how the painting was bittersweet and wistful.

"Possibly. A good conman never reveals his tricks."

"Neal!" she snapped. "This isn't a con. This isn't a forgery. This is real. This is you being an artist, not a fraud."

"Is that what I was to you?" he snapped. "A fraud?"

Her expression softened. "Not as person. At least not most of the time. Professionally, yes, when you're running a con it's a fraud. Breaking into the Louvre, for instance, very fraudulent."

He chuckled softly.

"Neal, this is beautiful," she said, her face exceedingly kind. "This painting. It's better than any of your forgeries, because I can see something of you in it, and you've always been beautiful to me. Even when I hated you, you were beautiful. Do you have more?"

He nodded, and gestured towards the desk drawer. When she tried to open it and found it locked, he was there right behind her, his hand on her hip, reaching out to unlock the drawer with a tiny key. She didn't move, and she didn't take his hand off her hip. "You have always been beautiful to me," he murmured. "Even when I hated you, you were the most beautiful girl. And the most alive. And I knew if I saw you again, I'd feel alive again."

He could almost feel her breathing and heart rate speed up as she opened the drawer and pulled out a stack of papers. She began flipping through the paintings and pencil drawings, all of which were original. "Oh, Caffrey," she said, when she saw the painting that had begun as a copy of _Starry Night_ but had turned into something entirely different. "It's like the stars are made of cotton candy. It's like ... being a child."

He laughed.

She turned to face him, still holding onto the painting. "You see, you don't have to break into the Louvre."

"But I do." He wasn't going to lie to her. He wasn't going to pretend to be something that he wasn't. "I'm not respectable."

"I don't care if you're respectable."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "But you do, Sara."

She smiled at him, as if she was seeing him for the first time in a long time. "Why are you here, Caffrey?"

"Because I – " He started and stopped.

"Because what?"

Some barrier inside him gave way and he just started talking without thinking carefully, without choosing his words carefully. Which was odd for Neal Caffrey. But he kept talking anyway. "Because I'll be 40 in a couple years," he told her, "and I'm looking at the second act of my life, and it feels empty. It shouldn't. I've got a lot of money and a really nice apartment. I live in Paris, for god's sakes. I have freedom, which you don't understand how precious it is, until you've lost it. But I'm alone. I've got some friends to pass the time with, collaborate on some cat burglary here and there with, but I left a lot behind. I left my name behind. My life. And I'm not having second thoughts. I made the right decision. I'm sorry that I hurt so many people in the process, but I made the right decision. If the Panthers had come after Peter and Elizabeth, and the baby..." He clenched his fists together.

Sarah put the painting down and reached out to grab his hands. She unclenched them, and then just held onto them, her touch gentle but firm at the same time.

After a moment, he went on talking, rambling. "So I know I did the right thing, but I miss a lot of things from that life. And I miss you. And I kept thinking about that day on the 103rd floor of the empire state building, when I proposed to you, for a con. And you talked about the children we could have in another life, the baton twirling con artist children."

She nodded, and he thought he saw a hint of tears in her eyes as she said, "Conrad and Connie. Those were the names. You were too good of a con man that day. I almost believed it."

He shook his head. "I meant it. And I should have told you that. I should have asked."

"You wanted to ask? For me to marry you? Actually marry you, not for a con?"

Neal nodded. "It didn't seem fair to you. You were going to London, which was way outside of my radius, and I was in the middle of so much with my father, and the investigation into those dirty cops just kept getting more dangerous, and then when it was supposed to be over, Peter was in jail for a murder my father committed, and everything just went to hell. Why would you have wanted to be mixed up with any of that?"

"You could have asked me," she said.

"You'd left before," he said.

She nodded. "I did. So what now?" She was still holding his hands in hers.

He looked down at their entwined fingers and took a deep breath as he said, "I don't know."

"Are you telling me everything?" she asked, her lips turned up into a hesitant smile, full of doubts but full of light at the same time. Sara was always so damned alive.

"Yes," he said. And then then, almost as if her eyes were compelling it out of him, he said, "I'm supposed to pull a job in town, while I'm here. But I could get out of it."

She glared at him, hissing, "I think you should."

"It's good money."

"I think you'll live."

Neil sighed as he pulled his hands away from her, and dug his cell phone out of his pocket. He typed a furiously quick text message, showed her the message so that she knew he was telling her the truth, and hit send.

He was stowing the phone back in his pocket when she kissed him. It was a sweet kiss, not too intense, but there was feeling there. A lot of feeling. She took him off guard, at first, but he recovered quickly, and soon he was wrapping his arms around her, feeling the expensive fabric of her dress, and the warmth of her skin. Soon she was pulling him towards the bed, and pushing him down on top of the plush comforter. As he loosened his tie and looked up at her, Sara Ellis climbed on top of him and laughed that wonderful laugh of hers. The music of it made him think of the bustle of New York, and long, lazy mornings with her in his apartment in June's house, and summer, and of things he'd never experienced with her, life swimming in the ocean, or fireflies, or freedom. "Are you sure about this?" Neal asked.

Sara laughed again. Then she kissed him. So much intensity in that kiss, so different from the first, passion and excitement, and anger. It was a frantic kiss, impatient, and complicated. At least that's how it seemed to Neal. As he kissed her back, he was trying to tell her so many things. And he didn't understand everything about what she wanted from him, or what he wanted from her, or if she could ever forgive him. But he knew Sara was sure. About this moment at least. When she began to unbutton his shirt, he just moaned and gave into the moment, gave into her, and them. Because all of a sudden, there seemed to be a _them_.


	2. Chapter 2

_**A/N**_

 _Thanks to everyone who's been reading and especially reviewing. I really appreciate you taking the time to check out this story, years after the series concluded. It took me longer than I expected to get back to this story. But I have the second installment. And I'm hoping that the third and fourth will come in a more timely manner._

 _Happy 2019!_

 _Norah_

 **Summer**

16 months later

It was a hot summer in Paris. Ten o'clock at night, but the heat lingered in the sticky air. Neal's shirt stuck to his back, making him wish he'd left his vest and jacket behind. He loosened his tie. The air conditioning in this old building was no match for the summer, or the number of people crammed into the gallery. But he knew that the size of the crowd was a good sign, down to the last sweaty person.

"So, Mr. Moreau, can you tell us about the artist? Who is he?" The fifty-something American woman with silver hair spoke in exaggeratedly hushed tones, as if they alone were in on some fabulous secret. Neal took in her pretentious gestures and her ten thousand dollar dress. It was an ugly, multi-colored mess of a thing. Money was wasted on the rich.

Neal plastered on his most charming smile. "My client is a private man. I can't say much."

"These pink stars," she said, gesturing to the painting that had begun as a Van Gogh forgery. "I've never seen anything like it."

"I'm sure he would be glad to hear it." And Neal was glad. Even if it came from a woman who would wear that ... thing.

"And the name, Daniel Pearl, is a pseudonym. I couldn't find anything about him online. And I looked."

"You like to dot all those i's, do you?" he asked, dialing up the dazzle on his smile as her gossipy voice and her beady eyes began to grate on him.

"I like to know who I'm dealing with. In this case, someone who feels the need to use a pseudonym?"

"That I can neither confirm nor deny," Neal said.

"And the artist isn't here? Surely he'd want to see the reactions to his work?" Another voice, lower, scratchier. Someone he couldn't see, but who must be standing directly behind Neal. A familiar voice. A voice that wasn't supposed to be here. Neal felt his heart stop. It had been long enough. Right? Surely it had been long enough for this contact to be made.

He turned slowly. Seeing this man in the flesh for the first time in two years, it was like seeing a tiny piece of his youth, his home, maybe even his real self. Short, balding, bespectacled, the man grinned. Far too pleased with himself. But alive. Unmaimed. Not even a tortured expression. Mozzie was okay. Neal had been keeping tabs on his friend's safety, but it was good to see it with his own eyes.

Neal couldn't helped himself. Professionalism be damned. He threw his arms around his oldest friend. "Good to see you, Mozz. It's been a while."

"Too long, Vic," Mozzie said, sounding a little choked up.

The horribly dressed woman cleared her throat, causing Neal to break away from the hug, turning towards her. "Mrs. Raddison, you'll have to excuse me," he said, dialing back the charm, letting his smile become more polite, more forced, so that she would take the hint. "You'll make the right decision. Ultimately the choice to buy a piece of art is a personal one. Subjective. We all decide who we let in. Now, if you'll excuse me."

Glancing around for Sara, knowing she was in the crowd but not seeing her readily, Neal took a deep breath, inclined his head toward an unassuming door at the back of the gallery, and led Mozzie through it. Then up two flights of stairs, to the roof. As soon as they were both through the door, he locked it.

Letting the breeze the stir up his hair, Neal exhaled. The view of Paris was spectacular, almost as good as his old view of New York from June's roof. He'd set up a table and chairs up here this afternoon, never expecting he'd have two uses for them. Neal collapsed in one iron-latticed chair, putting his head in his hands. The shock of relief and excitement over, and the feeling of home soaked into his bones-now he felt his whole body trembling. Not visibly. He hoped. But Neal could feel multiple worlds on the verge of colliding. Possibly on the verge of collapsing. This reunion could either solidify his new life, or it could break him apart. Because everyone he loved wanted him to be a different version of himself.

He heard Mozzie scrape a chair along the concrete, pulling it out to sit down across from him. "You okay?"

Neal looked up and flashed a grin at his old friend. "Of course."

"Vic. No, _Neal_ , it's me."

Neal nodded, took a deep breath and let his expression deflate, until his expression showed tiredness, relief, nervous happiness, and probably a million other things he wasn't consciously aware of. Neal almost never allowed anyone to see his true face. "It's amazing to see you, Mozz. It's a little overwhelming because I wasn't sure I would. I thought I might be running forever. Or maybe I would have fooled even you. It was either done too well or not well enough."

"But you're not running," Mozzie said. "You're settled in Paris to a foolhardy degree. You and your girlfriend were mentioned in a society column last week."

Neal shrugged. "A small mention. No photograph."

"How serious is this thing with Sara?"

Neal felt his throat tighten as he thought about the answer to that question, about how he'd envisioned this night ending. "It's extremely serious. And it's non-negotiable."

Mozzie raised his eyebrows. "She knows you faked your death?"

"Obviously."

"And she's okay with that?"

"It was bumpy at first." Neal laughed, a real laugh. "By at first I mean six months."

"Not now?"

"Pretty smooth. She relocated to Paris two weeks ago. She left Sterling Bosch, ostensibly because she was offered a pay raise and a partnership in a French insurance agency. And that's true. But she also wanted to distance herself from any professional affiliation with the notorious late Neal Caffrey."

Mozzie's eyes widened. "Big step. I saw her, as I was coming in. I don't think she saw me. She looked good. But here's what I want to know. Does Sara know everything?"

Neal nodded.

"Does she know you forged a Renoir and sold it recently?"

Neal grinned, laughing. "How did you know about that?"

"Please. Alex fenced it."

"You're in contact with Alex."

"Occasionally. But in this case, I'm just well informed."

Neal took a deep breath, feeling delighted for some reason. When you keep so many secrets, being seen, truly seen, it's like being a child. And so he felt this pure delight at being found out. "Yeah. Sara knows. I showed her the forgery before I talked to Alex. Originally, it wasn't supposed to be a forgery. It was supposed to be an original piece. But you know. Old habits die hard."

Mozzie laughed. "That they do. But you're saying that Sara Ellis is okay with you forging a painting and getting it fenced for five million?"

"No," Neal said. "She was furious. She said not to do it. I said I was doing it anyway. There was a lot of yelling. But I told her that I'd already turned down several jobs to make her happy, and that if I wanted to play by anybody's rules, I would have kept myself tethered to the FBI."

"Did you think she was going to find out?"

Neal shook his head. "No. It was a private buyer in Germany. It was an alias she was previously unaware of. But she'd made the decision to move here, to leave the company she'd worked for since she was twenty-three. I think that's why I forged the painting in the first place. Because I couldn't let her give up even a fraction of her previous life and come here if I was just going to con her."

Mozzie formed a steeple with his fingers. "A litmus test."

Neal nodded.

"And she passed?"

"I passed. But yeah, I guess she did too. Because she let me do it. I'm not sure why. I think she's still mad about it. But she gets it, somehow, that I have to be myself or I'll shrivel up. And the buyer is somebody who deserves to be screwed over."

Mozzie nodded. "She's a good girl. But she's not going to let you color outside the lines forever, you know that, right?" he asked. "It might not be a tether to the FBI, but you let this go on, and you're going to tether yourself to her. And her moral code. Which may not be so excited about you being yourself on a regular basis."

Neal shrugged. "Maybe that's okay. Maybe I need an anchor. Maybe I need someone who will stop me from getting into a situation that I can only get out of by faking my own death. There's only so many times I can do that."

Mozzie smiled and tilted his head, considering. "And maybe she looks really good in that red dress she's wearing tonight?"

"Doesn't hurt."

Mozzie nodded, staring out at the city's lights. "Whose idea was this show? Obviously I know who the artist is."

Neal felt his heart flutter.

"I'd be an idiot if I didn't recognize your original work."

Neal laughed. "It was my idea, actually. Since I couldn't use my real name, or my current primary alias, I'm representing myself. I've been building up a clientele, so I'm not too obvious about it. I've got a show next week, for an artist who isn't me. But yes, it's my work."

"Is it a con?" Mozzie asked.

Neal shrugged. "Not sure yet. I'll let you know if I figure that one out."

They sat on the roof for a while after that, in easy conversation, watching the city. Mozzie told him about Peter and Elizabeth, about the quiet life they'd settled into since he'd left his partnership with Peter. Mozzie's face lit up when he talked about baby Neal, who was almost two and had just learned how to lie. Mozzie thought the kid had a bright future.

###

It seemed like a lifetime later when they walked down the stairs, through the unassuming door, into the gallery. Neal caught Sara's eye. She looked annoyed, and he realized he'd left her to fend for both of them for longer than he'd intended. When Mozzie appeared behind Neal, Sara's expression turned from annoyance to shock, and then to delight. She hurried to finish a conversation, then crossed the room and gave Mozzie an appraising look. Before Neal or Mozzie could say anything, Sara drew Mozzie into a brief but authentic hug. "This is a surprise," she said. "Is it a surprise to you too, Moreau?"

"Yup," Neal said. He thrust his hands into his pockets, trying to decide if he should go ahead with his original plans for the evening. Glancing from his oldest friend to the only woman who'd ever known every side of him, Neal decided to stay the course. Diverging from his plans now, it would be another con. These were two people he shouldn't have to con.

As he grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing server, he realized that he shouldn't have to con himself either. If he wanted something, he'd say it. Neal looked around for a fork, realized that all the trays of appetizers were finger food, and felt silly for expecting anything different. He pulled a pen from his jacket pocket. Holding up the glass, he clinked it with the pen, several times until he had the crowd's attention. "Thank you all so much for coming. I've spoken with Mr. Pearl, telling him how well the evening's gone. And he's thrilled. Humbled. He wanted me to pass on his sincere thanks because he didn't think this moment would come. You don't always expect that you can lay your whole self bare and have it work, you know? So he's grateful. And I'm grateful. It's been a pleasure to get to talk to all of you about my client." Neal glanced around at some of the people he'd actually enjoyed speaking with, strangers who'd discussed his work like it meant something to them.

"But before we all go home, I have one more thing. I wanted to thank Sara Ellis, the beautiful lady in red standing right here," he said, turning to Sara, whose face lit up. She laughed in that charming display of authentic surprise, a strange innocence that was unique to Sara. When Sara was happy, she actually looked happy, like it radiated out of her every pore.

He took a deep breath, looking directly into her eyes, as he said, "I first met Sara about a decade ago. We didn't get along right away. She didn't like me. I didn't like her. We belonged to different worlds. But then there was this series of moments." He moved closer to her, letting all of the artistry fall from his face, so that he didn't even know what his expression looked like. He might be smiling. He might look terrified. He might even be crying and not realize it. There was not one ounce of the conman in him, not in this moment at least. His voice broke just a tiny bit as he said, "And with each moment, I felt myself becoming more solid. Like I was real, one person, only myself, more and more, until here I am standing in front of the woman I love, not sure if I will ever belong to any world, but sure that I want to try to belong to hers." He reached into the pocket of his trousers, sighing as his fingers closed around the black velvet box.

Sara's eyes filled with tears before he pulled out the box, showing it to her, to everyone, but now they threatened to overflow. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mozzie standing very still behind Sara. Mozzie was not crying. He shook his head, subtly but forcefully, as if issuing a warning. Neal could almost hear Mozzie's voice in his head, telling him that this was too big of a step, too big of a tether, and that asking the question in public was just plain stupid. Neal nodded, acknowledging his friend's warning, maybe even acknowledging that Mozzie was right, before giving Mozz a little shrug. Neal turned his attention back to Sara.

As he opened the box, revealing the very expensive, very legally purchased diamond and sapphire ring, Sara made this weird little sound, something between crying and laughing. "Vic," she breathed. "What the hell are you doing?"

Neal smiled. Not his con man smile. His real smile, less brazen, less confident, slightly crooked. But sweeter. Kinder. "I'm doing what I should have done properly all those years ago on the Empire State building. I'm asking you to marry me. For real this time."

There was a long silence. As if everyone in the gallery was holding their breath. Sara just stared at him. Finally she said, "No angle?"

"Just me."

"No secrets?"

He laughed. "You know them all." And he meant it. He'd revealed his last two aliases to her just the night before, along with the fact that an old associate had contacted him about a potential diamond heist. He'd explained to Sara, truthfully, that he'd considered taking the offer but had turned it down. He didn't have any plans to break the law, not for a while at least. He couldn't tempt fate too much and hope to stay in the same city, under the same name, for any length of time. He would have taken the job if it wasn't for her. But she was more important than diamonds. "If you'll have me, I'm here. No angle. No secrets," he said. "I want to build a life with you, Sara. A real life. I want to grow old with you."

She was actually crying now as she reached out to touch the ring, her hand trembling.

"I want everything with you." He was babbling now. "Even a mortgage. And kids, if you want them. Or not, if you don't." Sara's eyes widened. Behind her, Mozzie looked like he was about to throw up. Neal realized he and Sara had never discussed what their future could really be, in the long term. There'd been the joke about raising con artist children, Connie and Conrad, but there'd never been a real conversation about children. He wasn't even sure why he was still talking. Except that he felt like he had to keep talking, to keep saying the things in his head, to force himself to not con her in any way. "Whatever future you want, I'll—"

Tears spilling from her eyes, she finally nodded. "Shut up, Vic. I'll marry you."

"Really?"

"Yes," she said, grabbing the ring from him and sliding it onto her finger. It fit perfectly. "But stop talking before you say something that's really embarrassing." Pulling him toward her, she kissed him. She whispered, so only he could hear, "Caffrey, you're insane. But I love you. So yes."

Neal handed off the champagne glass to someone, not knowing who exactly, so he could wrap both his arms around Sara and really kiss her. Tears came to his eyes as he felt his whole body melt with relief. He allowed himself to relax, into her, into the kiss. Around them, strangers were clapping. In the back of his mind, he wondered why he'd felt the need to put on a show. But Neal Caffrey felt warmer, less guarded, and more himself than he had since he was eighteen, regardless of the fact that all but two people here knew him only by an alias.

Sara laughed, and it sounded like magical. "I can't believe you really did that," she murmured, pulling away from him for a moment.

He laughed. And his laugh sounded strange, like there was no artistry to it, like he was allowing himself to truly laugh for the first time in a very long time. Then he kissed her again.


End file.
